If you like minimalist design and lots of white, you’ll love today’s Courier-Journal house of the week at Norton Commons.
Category: Real Estate
An occasional look at premium homes on the market.
The address: 3424 Glenview Ave., 40222. Asking price: $3,850,000. Agency: Kentucky Select Properties. The pitch: Inspired by Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, Twin Leaf estate sits on a hilltop above seven lush acres and is built for entertaining — especially outdoors. The home’s highlight is the rear family room with extensive natural light and French doors leading to the absolutely stunning terrace, swimming pool and covered pool house.
Essentials include six bedrooms, six full baths and one half-bath. The second floor includes a master suite with his and hers bathrooms, plus three more bedroom suites. The third floor has been transformed into a bunk room with custom built-in beds.
The lower level features a custom-built, climate-controlled wine cellar for 2,200 bottles; a theater room; exercise room, and attached three-bay garage. There’s also a separate apartment with kitchen, full bathroom and bedroom that opens to a sunken rose garden — perfect guest quarters or for cherished domestic staff.
The property was last sold for $2.2 million in 2007, according to Zillow. The assessed value is $1,969,890, according to the Jefferson County PVA.
Here’s the main entrance, followed by a photo of its inspiration: Jefferson’s Monticello.
Personal finance site GO Banking Rates released a study this week on median rental costs for one-bedroom apartments across the country. The study also included the apartments’ average square footage and monthly utility costs. The median for all 50 cities was $1,234.43 — meaning half were higher, and half lower.
Ranking the 50 cities from least expensive to most, No. 1 Wichita, Kan., was the cheapest: $470.
Louisville ranked No. 13, at $750 a month. (That’s close the the median $713 from the authoritative Census Bureau.)
And the most expensive — hang on to your wallet! — was San Francisco, at a whopping $3,600 a month.
Just two other cities in the region made the list: No. 9 Indianapolis: $732, and No. 35 Nashville, $1,395.
Town & Country magazine has the full list of all 50.
Although Louisville didn’t offer the cheapest one-bedrooms, it did score at the top in two other measures. Apartments were the biggest, averaging 806.62 square feet vs. the average 678 for all those surveyed.
And the city ranked No. 1 in pet-friendly landlords; 51% of rental apartments allow pets. That was nearly double the 26% average.
Photo, top: The Grove at Lyndon apartments at 776 Sunset Drive has one-bedrooms starting at $665, according to Apartments.com. Check out these other listings.
Photo, below: San Francisco’s iconic Golden Gate Bridge, looking northwest to the city in the distance.
From Louisville’s wonderful Broken Sidewalk urban-life blog: How Travis Provencher is remaking Smoketown, one shotgun house at a time.
The Germantown Mill Lofts website is full of even more amazing pictures of the new 185-unit complex, now nearing completion by Underhill Associates at 946 Goss Ave. Apartments range from studios to one- and two-bedrooms. All are equipped with washers and dryers. Many feature floor-to-ceiling windows (photo, top) that flood apartments with natural light. Amenities include a swimming pool, a gym (now under construction) and the new Finn’s Southern Kitchen restaurant.
Options and prices:
- Studios. 540-871 square feet: $752 to $1,165 a month.
- One bedrooms. 685 to 1,180 square feet: $953 to $1,480 a month.
- Two bedrooms. 926 to 2,376 square feet: $1,202 to $2,889 a month.
The lofts occupy what was once Kentucky’s biggest cotton mill, consisting of more than 250,000 square feet of beautiful brick buildings spread over nearly eight acres in the heart of Germantown and Schnitzelburg. Finn’s was built inside what was once the mill’s administrative office.
Here’s what the Louisville Textile Mill looked like in 1937, in this University of Louisville Photographic Archives photo. In the foreground, that’s a cobblestone Goss Avenue, spliced by trolley tracks.
That photo, top, shows the gorgeous garden at the Gilbert house at 216 Preston St., designed by Louisville architect Jeff Rawlins.
This year’s annual tour showcases eight Louisville homes built or renovated by architects and designers, and chosen by the American Institute of Architects’ Kentucky chapter, according to Broken Sidewalk; the urban planning site has addresses and photographs of all eight.
When: June 11, noon to 6 p.m. How much: Tickets for all eight houses are $15 in advance via Eventbrite or $20 at the door of any of the houses. Proceeds benefit Habitat for Humanity.
The tour also includes the historic Hendon House at 201 Crescent Court; architects for the project were Charles Cash and Mary Herd Jackson. The 1840s house is one of the best of The Courier-Journal’s weekly house features on Saturdays. The exterior:
Boulevard 